Medicaid

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, if you or a loved one is diagnosed with a life-altering medical condition, the last thing you want to face is a mountain of government paperwork in order to get your care.

But when Republicans in Congress passed their One Big Beautiful Bill, President Trump's budget--that is what they call it--last year, they placed themselves in the middle of whether or not you get treatment.

In that law, the Republicans created a requirement for all Medicaid recipients between the ages of 18 and 64 to either work 80 hours a month or verify they are too sick to do so in order to maintain Medicaid coverage.

At first glance, that might just sound like a reasonable requirement. The reality is, the plan drowns eligible patients in paperwork, requiring those who are poor and sick to navigate a maze of government redtape to see a doctor.

To qualify for Medicaid, you need to have low or no income or perhaps have a disability. Now the Republicans want to put a paperwork requirement on this to prove that you can't work 80 hours a month.

Last week, the Trump administration took a look at this and decided to make a bad situation even worse. They announced the rules to implement these work requirements. The administration decided that documenting that you have a serious condition like cancer or Alzheimer's is not enough to avoid work requirements. Instead, they are further requiring patients to verify that these conditions actually impede your ability to work.

In case it is not obvious, a 64-year-old cancer patient, traveling 30 miles each direction every week to undergo chemotherapy, might not have the ability to show up to their shift, waiting tables. Under Republicans' work requirements, one misstep by a patient, provider, or State employee could mean the difference between having health coverage or not. Is this a burden?

What if we suggested that you file your income tax returns not only on April 15 but on October 15 as well--twice a year--to make sure we catch up with you? Is that a burden? Of course, it is.

Have Republicans in Congress really deemed you unworthy of getting cancer treatment because a signature was missing on one of the dozens of pages in the forms you had to submit to prove that you are unable to work?

In addition to creating this work requirement, Republicans in Congress also refused to extend the Affordable Care Act's enhanced premium tax credits in their Big Beautiful Bill--tax breaks for wealthy people but no benefits for those trying to pay their health insurance premiums.

Twenty-four million Americans rely on these tax credits to afford their health insurance, but they expired at the end of last year. Without them, insurance premiums have doubled or tripled for many families, the same families that are struggling to buy groceries, to pay their utility bills, to make sure that they have enough money for rent or mortgage. And how about the cost of gasoline while we are at it? We have decided these folks need to have an additional expense of health insurance premiums, according to my Republican colleagues.

Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune newspaper reported that more than 92,000 people living in my State have lost or dropped their health insurance this year due to the skyrocketing premiums and the Republican policy change eliminating tax benefits to help people pay for their health insurance.

Illinois is no outlier. Millions of Americans nationwide lost their insurance coverage because the Republican decision to change the policy priced them out of care. Listen to one of the stories.

Sharon Dunham, from Grand Rapids, MI, told the Wall Street Journal that she beat cancer twice and has multiple health challenges, but she had to drop her insurance altogether--drop her insurance altogether-- this year when her monthly premiums increased by $300.

With inflation, which the President embraced yesterday and said that he dearly loves--add that to the health insurance premiums, she just couldn't hack it.

Sharon plans to go without insurance until she turns 65. She prays that she will last long enough to reach the Medicare eligibility age. In the meantime, she is terrified that her cancer might return and knows that without health insurance, ``I can't do anything if it shows up.''

Think about that for a minute. A vote here on the Senate floor has put this lady in a situation where she is battling cancer without health insurance.

Countless other families are making similar heartbreaking decisions like Sharon. Without health insurance, they are just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy.

Republicans' Big Beautiful Bill doesn't stop just at that point. It also enacted the most severe cut to the SNAP program in history. From July 2025 to February 2026, more than 3\1/2\ million people have lost access to the program that actually puts groceries on their table.

One SNAP recipient, Presley Nassise, told the Public Broadcasting System that his benefits went from $200 to zero after the Republican cuts, after which he could only afford 1\1/2\ meals a day.

Go to your local food bank and ask them what is going on. They are being deluged and swamped by people who are struggling to make ends meet, struggling to pay for groceries.

And folks with limited income need a helping hand. I have been there. I have seen those food banks. And thank goodness for the people who open them, the churches and the volunteers that keep them open.

It is no wonder that more Americans are going without the food that they need now in 2026 than during the peak of COVID-19.

As the Big Beautiful Bill's provisions take effect, Republicans can no longer hide behind the statement that they have only tried to target waste, fraud, and abuse.

Americans are waking up to the reality that Republicans abandoned working families so they could provide tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country.

While Republicans are content to act like nothing is wrong, Democrats are continuing to fight to restore these programs.

It may not be popular in some circles to speak out for the poor and low-income people in this country, but I think we have an obligation to do so. If these people are trying to get by--struggling to get health insurance, to put food on their table, to be able to go to the kind of healthcare that keeps them alive--we have got to speak up for them.

I don't believe these are cheaters and chiselers and frauds. These are people who are trying to get by. And putting additional paperwork requirements on them--making it more and more difficult--making someone who has Alzheimer's file papers regularly with the government to prove they can't go to work, for goodness' sake, what has this Nation come to? We can do better than that.

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